Let's imagine a scenario where you sit comfortably in your living room and suddenly there's a knock on the door. Police officers enter your home without even a semblance of politeness and perform a search and seizure operation to confiscate "dangerous substances." They wreak havoc in your home but you have no clue what they are actually looking for. The only thing you can be certain of is that you don't have any such "dangerous substances" and that they have a legal right. This, according to the new impending legislation, might soon become reality.
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Let's take this scenario further. After completing their sweep of your apartment, they leave empty-handed and your only recourse is to vent your anger on social media and describe the Orwellian experience you had just endured. You can also throw in some profanity to show just how angry you are. Your post becomes viral, only to then be taken offline by some hidden hand. Then an officer calls and asks you to "stop with the incitement lest you be prosecuted."
Is that just unwarranted hysteria on my part? Is this just science fiction? No, such legislation has already passed its first hurdle in the Knesset plenum. It will give officers the right to conduct searches without a warrant if they have probable cause that there is an item that can serve as a weapon in a grave crime in the future. It will allow the judiciary to take posts offline through a fast-track procedure. If these two pieces of legislation get enacted, Israelis' freedom of expression and sense of security at home will be shattered. Those who believe that they will not be affected because they are law-abiding citizens and maintain proper netiquette should keep in mind that only the judges and officers will have the right to determine whether you have followed the law, and they are, to put it mildly, not on your side.
The fact that those pushing this legislation are the MKs of New Hope should come as no surprise. The party has produced a justice minister (Gideon Sa'ar) who is unpopular and gets hammered on social media frequently and an education minister (Yifat Shasha-Biton) who has all but sided with anti-vaxxers. Thus, it could be expected that such a party would try to hide criticism and questions. Shasha-Biton did exactly that, allegedly, to her own staff at the ministry. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the legislation is designed to tackle right-wingers because obviously, they are the only ones who incite on social media. Unlike the Left, which always engages in a civil conversation without profanity.
Just imagine former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to push through legislation that is even remotely close to this. Everyone would have gone ballistic, and rightly so. Radio personas would have started using the words "dictator", "Erdogan" and "the end of democracy" ad nauseam (even more loosely than they already do). But they know full well that the Right, despite being until recently in power for more than a decade, never came close to passing such laws, unlike the current coalition, for which it barely took six months.
To put it simply: New Hope's laws are a disgrace and anti-democratic covered with a fake rationale of public safety. But we all know that this is just the unpopular parties are trying to muzzle the critics. Well, I have news for all those who voted for this measure: You will not succeed.
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